P&O Cruises Australia’s former 1,220-passenger Pacific Eden, which was Holland America Line’s Statendam, joins Astoria, Columbus, Magellan and Marco Polo in April next year. The naming is on June 9 in Bremerhaven.
She departs Tilbury on October 9, 2019 on her 53-night repositioning voyage to Australia, arriving in Sydney on December 1.
A 46-night voyage from Singapore to London on March 9, 2020, which will include CMV’s maiden call at Limassol, Cyprus, concludes her inaugural programme Down Under.
Vasco da Gama replacing Astor
Vasco da Gama is replacing the 600-passenger Astor, which will have spent six years operating the company’s extended seasons from Fremantle and Adelaide.
Home-porting in Adelaide and Fremantle, and also cruising from Sydney and Singapore, Vasco da Gama is expected to carry an extra 5,900 passengers throughout the 2019/20 season, compared with Astor’s final 2018/19 season.
Maiden calls in Australia and Borneo
She will be the first cruise ship to visit South Australia’s Wallaroo, 160km northwest of Adelaide and gateway to the Copper Coast, southern Yorke Peninsula and the wineries of Clare Valley.
She will make CMV’s maiden visits to Kuri Bay and Broome (Western Australia), Portland and Phillip Island (Victoria) and Sandakan (Borneo).
She will also be the first cruise ship to visit four South Australian ports in a single voyage — Adelaide, Wallaroo, Penneshaw-Kangaroo Island and Port Lincoln.
A 14-night round trip from Singapore touring southeast Asia is another first for CMV.
‘We wanted to offer a range of new options on board Vasco da Gama and accommodate the increased demand for our cruises,’ CMV Australia’s md Dean Brazier said.
The 2019/20 Australasian Cruise Collection, with sailings from Sydney, Adelaide, Fremantle and Singapore, is currently being distributed to CMV’s agency partners.
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